By now this is old news, not to mention all over the interwebs. I just wanted to mention it here, since y’all know how I feel about plagiarism–that being that it is, at it’s very core, whack. I’m saying.
Monthly Archive for March, 2005
Ahhh, Easter. One more in our string of pointless and annoying holidays. I am already on the record regarding Valentine’s Day (aka Pathetic Day of Weenitude for the Lovefflicted), and HA HA HA and Ball Bag have covered St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, respectively.
This leads us to my two next-favorite, and a little walk down memory lane. When I moved to Germany as a young whippersnapper, it was around Easter time. As I expected, everything was closed for the holiday so that the fat German shopkeepers could hang around at home, sorting their recycling and stuffing themselves with sausages and–that most mysterious of all foodstuffs–quark. No I don’t mean the elementary particle: this quark involves dairy. Meanwhile, the rest of us, who have, natürlich, forgotten to buy everything the previous day, are elbowing our way to the gas station coolers to fight over ancient packets of bologna.
After Easter, next on the list of shop-closing holidays is Pfingsten. The only appropriate response to this is “Gesundheit,” as any smart traveler knows. Next come the mysterious twins, Christi Himmelfahrt and Maria Himmelfahrt. These are when Jesus and his mother both rocket up to the heavens by fart power. No, really, they do. Himmel. Fart. Would I lie about this?
It’s much nicer in English, anyway, where Jesus has the ascension (still rockets up to the sky, this time by jet pack) and Maria has the assumption. In scientific terms this means she dissolves into the sky in a great glittering cloud of sparkly molecules. As really effing special as that all sounds, I’d still prefer to be able to buy my dinner anywhere other than a gas station.
Because I always keep my promises, here are some of the best sentences submitted to me in final papers for my fiction class. These kids aren’t quite the miserable, neurotic onanists I have had in previous courses, but they’re good for a chuckle or two. No limoges toilets this time, unfortunately.
Although they fail to be truly funny, mostly achieving the status of "depressing dullard" at best, this is all I’ve got. I have learnt something from them, though, and have managed to generate a lengthy-looking post comprised mainly of the writings of others. Maybe one day I can reach the soaring heights of plagiarism girl and not have to do my own compositions at all!
And without further ado, please enjoy Vague’s favorite lamebrain slouches:
On the Importance of Confusing the Audience: Well Done, You!
Re-evoking the theme of falsehood hiding under happiness is important here in showing the audience that little is as it seems.
On page 72 the number three is repeated so many times within two paragraphs that it’s hard to see much else in the story!
Her personality confuses V on how Sebastian could of ever loved a women like her.
On Women in Literature and Film: Multifaceted Skanks
Unlike other books, this book has many female characters.
There are major and minor female characters in [this film].
Dorothy is a woman of different sides.
I think this is about the most skanky thing a girl could say, especially considering she is married, with a child, and having sex with two different men, one of which is a stranger and a criminal, the other of which is a psycho murderer.
Incidentally, this begs the question, why do female students think "The Role of Women in X" is an interesting topic? What provincial schoolmarm made the fatal error of implying that anyone cares? I certainly don’t care, and I myself am a woman. There is a reason I never attempt to discuss this subject in class people; take a hint. Vague. Does. Not. Give. A. Shit.
Loyal readers may have noted that I did not post any exemplary student writing this term. In my defense, my students this Winter have been wonderful. I have had hardly any nightmares in which I lost control of the class because the mofos just wouldn’t listen.
They’ve contributed healthily to discussions and have been consistently clever for ten whole weeks in a row! Just as I was bragging about them to a friend in my office, one of my less stellar pupils deposited the following stinkbag into my unsuspecting paws:
When Doyle created Sherlock Holmes towards the end of the 1880’s England was still very proper. The British reader may have had different criteria for describing a good detective then the American reader of 1930-40’s. The need for obvious violence may not have been as necessary as for their American counterparts. The world was a different place in 1930’s American than it was in the late 1880’s in Britain. Politics, religion, and society all played a part in the influence of each author and therefore, the character of the detectives they developed.
I don’t know where to begin anymore. In all fairness, other pitiable lummoxes contributed equally woeful submissions for their final essays. In honor of the course’s subject matter, I will be nominating passages for the No Shit, Sherlock awards as I finish reading all the papers. More to come.
Last week, Spring tried to spring itself a little early. The sun was out, no rain, and all the young whippersnappers were out in their tiny skirts and flip-flops, oranged up with fake tan goo and playing frisbee with their smelly dogs.
The magnolia tree outside my office building bloomed, but it didn’t leaf. Then all the flowers fell and got trampled–if you know magnolias, you know the petals turn black and die if you even look at them sideways, so you can imagine the festering clumps of slimy blackened dead plant detritus clinging to the sidewalk and steps outside.
Today it’s back to normal–howling winds slamming people about and rocketing said dead plant matter into the sky, where it swirls around prettily for a while before blowing into my fifth-floor windows and smacking me in the eye. Now that’s more like it.
Honestly I am trying to work up here, but the sheafs of notes tacked to my wall all Beautiful-Mind-style are flapping and careening around the office like mad. Stupid “spring.”
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